


Psalms of the Magdalene

by Lady Belarvs (fightthosefairies)



Category: The L Word
Genre: Angst, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-03
Updated: 2013-07-03
Packaged: 2017-12-17 13:14:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,249
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/867953
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fightthosefairies/pseuds/Lady%20Belarvs
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Shane goes somewhere to reflect on the events of the season five finale.  Though it might not be where you'd expect.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Psalms of the Magdalene

I love the way their bodies tense up. The way their muscles go rock hard under all that soft skin. The way they sweat, the noises that what their bodies are feeling, what they're feeling, forces them to make. All the sounds that give them away.

_...love me..._

They're not whores or sluts or hoes... they're just women, enjoying all the amazing things their bodies can feel and can do. All the amazing things that I can help their bodies to feel. All the things that wanting me makes them feel compelled to do.

And they're mine. For a little while. They fall apart in my palms like a sandcastle that was built there, as my right palm strokes against my left palm and my left palm glides against my right palm, tenderly smearing all that moist sand between them. And even as I make them crumble, the heart of them gone slipping through my fingers, I am still more captured by them than they are (or ever have been) by me.

_... please don't love me...  
it's safer   
for you, if you don't..._

I love the look in their eyes when the first of it hits them – this lightning-flash glint of surprise or relief or triumph or gratitude – and the way their hands reach for me, claw at me, cling to me. As if it's only the feeling of my skin under their fingers, their nails digging into me, that will help them breathe again.

_... I can give you what you want...  
but I promise ...  
I will never be  
what you need..._

If I close my eyes, I can hear their blood blazing through their veins – I don't even have to listen very hard. If I knew what it was for each of them and could bottle it, I wouldn't... because the journey to this place is the most important thing and I wouldn't give it up for anything in the world. Because of this. Feeling their breath catch against my lips as they envelope my fingers and take me in for the first time. Sometimes they're hungry, sometimes they're shy, but their bodies still know what they want and they always, always tell me. Hot and wet and grasping, closing around me, keeping me there. They always tell me. That supple, irresistible texture against the pads of my fingers, different for every one of them, tightening and holding me.

Tanned skin with the lick of stripes where clothes have come between the glare of daylight or the tanning bed and their skin. Skin that's pale and white-pink like the inside of a shell, getting darker the closer you get to the center. Flesh you can close your lips and tongue around and taste. Delicate skin covered in reddish freckles that challenges you to take your time and count them all.

 _... forgive me, Father... forgive me..._

I don't go to church, much, anymore, but when I do, I never pray for myself. I light a candle for Dana, then light another one for Jenny and one more for my friends. 

_I have sinned..._

I can't ever repent. Because repenting is for those people who want to confess. Who want to apologize. Who want to cry and promise never to do it again. But I know that I will do it again. And I know that I won't be able to stop myself. Because of that rush of breath that gets sucked in that first time and I can feel their skin shifting over their ribs as it happens, as their lungs expand and they take in that breath and they sigh my name. 

Am I sorry? Ohh, _god_ , yes. As sorry as every last angel whose wings wilted when they forgot to look up and remember and then fell. As pathetic as every last leper. As damned as Eve's first daughter. 

_I am..._

I say a silent prayer as I light one last candle. Father Luis taught it to me one day when I turned up at the shelter, beaten. Bruised. He had me light a candle and he taught me what he called a very special prayer that was meant just for me. He held out the taper and I lit it and he taught me the words. It was short and simple, but even after just hearing it once, I never forgot it. 

_You... who already possess eternal happiness in His glorious presence, please intercede for me, so that someday I may share in the same everlasting joy. Amen._

He told me that if I were ever afraid, or was despairing, to say that prayer and she'd watch over me. That she was the one who would always look out for someone like me. Mary.

The flame flickers at the end of the match, my hand shaking as I hold the burning end to the wick of the candle, hearing the new wax on the fresh candle hiss as it melts away, as the wick catches. 

_...I wish I could be sorry_

What I did, I did for her. It was important. It just came to me, just like that. Like that moment, you know? The one I was talking about. Just a flash, blinding bright, and then I knew. Understand that, if you can't understand any of the rest of it. Or don't want to. I wouldn't blame you if you didn't want to try. 

_Mary..._

I won't apologize, because this was for her and it was what had to be done. It was right. It was _right_. 

_...had to be... had to be..._

For the longest time, I thought it would be enough. That trying to protect her from everything outside of us would be enough. I thought she was... 

no, she _was_. She was safe. With me.

At least until... 

_He died for her... they put Him up there for everyone to see and yell insults at and they say, now, that it was for all of them, but if you asked Him... if you really had a chance to ask Him... He'd probably say He did it for her. Because that's what was right, too. Same thing any decent person would have done... right?_

I feel the unforgiving bite of heat at my fingertips and I hiss as I quickly shake out the match and let it drop, where it falls between the votives with their lit wicks softly glowing and welcoming like home. If I try to reach, I'll burn. 

For just a split second, I _was_  sorry and wanted to take it all back and make it go away, as if it had never happened. As if it had never been. Seeing the look in her eyes, I wanted to say it and have it be true, have it be real. But I couldn't take it back, couldn't make it better, and nothing ever could again. 

My last... gift... to her. The only one that was ever really worth giving. The one I should have given her long before now.

While I sit with this gift – _her_ last gift, to me. The ache in my chest, the heavy weight against my ribs, the salty sting that blurs my eyes and makes every last candle brighten like blessings. 

_...Mary please, intercede for me_

It's the sweetest thing I've ever known. The entire world happening in that one split second. 

The world where she'd always been mine. The world where she still loved me.

The world where I'd never broken her heart.

_Amen._

**Author's Note:**

> I'm gathering together a lot of my fics from various fandoms written under various pseudonyms that have been scattered all over the internet for years. This is one of those fics.


End file.
